Talent...and what to do with it

Chapter 19: Jonah

What was I afraid of? Me? Nothing. How dare she ask me that? Didn't she know the stuff I'd done? I was afraid of nothing. Then I looked down at her, that fierce, tiny face and knew I was afraid of everything.
I was still shaking from that kiss. There was something about the way she was looking at me that made me want to collapse on the floor and weep. I inhaled and found that courage again.
"I've never lied to you, Jess," I said but I knew that wasn't enough to convince her. So I fell back on to the bench again and began to talk.
I told her everything. I kept to the basics and avoided too many gritty details and never once dared to look at her to see her disgust.
My story went like this: my teenage mum met a charming, cocky lad. She ignored her parents' warnings about him, putting it down to small town racism, and ran off to Manchester with him. They led a party life, and Mum and Dad were known at all the best clubs. I'd seen the photos. Mum looked polished and glamourous hanging off my handsome father's arm.
Then she fell pregnant with me and realised that her boyfriend was into drugs far more than she realised and that giving up drinking in the pregnancy was far harder than she expected. If she thought about leaving she had nowhere to go. She'd cut off all contact with Grandma and Granddad, and anyway, I think she clung to the hope that having me would change my dad.
By the time I was born he had graduated to being one of the top drug dealers in Manchester. He went out every night, working, he said. She drank more and more to get over the loneliness, left at home with a baby that apparently never slept.
I don't remember playing with anyone when I was growing up. I remember watching kids' TV, while mum leant against the kitchen cabinets staring into space or crying. She always had a drink in her hand. Sometimes we went to visit Grandma and Granddad. Dad never came with us. Grandma took me to the park and read me stories, and Granddad quietly judged us.
Then, when I was seven, Dad took me out with him one night. She told me later that she'd woken up to find me gone, and went crazy. She called the police, but luckily she found us first because when she did I was sitting in my car seat playing with a packet of cocaine. Dad was so furious she'd called the police that he hit her and told her it would be all her fault when social care took me away. He made her ring and call off the search and tell them she'd got it all wrong.
Somehow she was brave enough and sober enough to leave him that night. She stole some of his money and took a train back home. Grandma had died. Grudgingly Granddad took her in, not commenting on her black eye and her scrawny appearance.
And we started again. She must have had some of her charm left because Max fell for her all over again. We escaped Granddad's silent condemnation and moved in with Max and Lauren. I never even asked where Lauren's mum went – at the age of seven I had accepted families were fluid units.
Those were the good years. I started getting into running and Lauren and I used to have a laugh, always staying just out of any serious trouble, but egging each other on with our stupid stunts. I didn't feel alone anymore. Max helped Mum with her drinking and I think she loved him, and it could have all worked out fine. But one day Dad arrived on the doorstep and Mum dropped everything to drag us back to Manchester. She said he'd changed. She said she just couldn't say no to him. I didn't want to go. I secretly cried about leaving my school, my home and Lauren and Max, my family. But in the end I was just as much under Dad's spell as Mum was.
I stopped my story for a moment, suddenly realising that the one part of my history I had never understood – how Mum always went back to Dad – now made perfect sense to me. I felt in physical pain when I was away from Jess. And telling this story wasn't exactly going to convince her to take me back. It was clear to me that I played the role of my dad in our story, disrupting Jess's stable, happy life.
He promised her he'd changed – and he had. He had a fancy mansion in Cheshire now and drove a flash car. But he was still dealing and worse. Mum soon fell back to drink and Dad took me under his wing. We went to pubs and it took me a while to cotton on that I was his cover. Then he started sending me to do the deals instead of him. I was underage so he said it wouldn't do me any harm, I felt like a man when I was working for him and, just like Mum, I fell for it. I started to carry a knife. All the kids and school knew not to mess with me. When I was there I terrorised them, but I wasn't there much anyway. I loved the feeling of notoriety. I thought I was a gangster. I didn't realise I was just some kid being made to play with the big boys.
But earlier this year we were raided. I would never forget being woken up by the sound of the door being smashed in and Mum screaming. They ripped up the house. They cut open the sofas, the mattresses, everything. Mum was taken to the police station and I was taken into care for the night. It was the worst night of my life. I had never known fear like it.
They let Mum and me come home after twenty-four hours of hell. And we walked back into our deserted and wrecked house. Dad must have known it was coming – he'd disappeared. They found drugs and firearms. We'd never known about the guns. Mum stayed strong somehow. We hung around that ruined house for a while, until we discovered that Dad had lied to us yet again – we didn't own it, it just was rented. Then Mum got the letter telling her Granddad had died. He had left her the house. So with Dad still awaiting trial, we left.
We heard Dad was sent away. Everything should have been better, but we were stuck down here with no money. I thought at first it would be OK. Mum would get a job and we'd be free of Dad. But I was wrong.
I took a breath before I finished my story. "The thing is Jess. Mum's an alcoholic. She collapsed the night we went out. She's been in hospital ever since. She was in a coma. I couldn't tell you all this. Not you with your perfect family and your glittering future. You don't need to be a part of my sordid world." I stopped talking because I could feel my chin twitch in that weird way that told me I was going to cry if I carried on. I had never told anyone all that before. I couldn't look at Jess.
Then she was there. She was gently touching my forearms. Then her fingertips were caressing my face and I closed my eyes as a long shiver went through me. We said nothing for a moment. I just leant into her touch and tried not to wonder what she was thinking.
"Jonah," She whispered and her voice was gentle again, not that hard, cold tone I had heard before. "Jonah, open your eyes." But I couldn't. I knew the answer to her question – what was I afraid of? Everything. Turning out like my Dad. Being insignificant. Mum dying. Mum living and everyday losing her a little bit more. But most of all I was afraid of opening my eyes and seeing Jess's pity or, worse, her loathing. So I kept my eyes closed and pulled her to me and hid in her soft hair, shaking as she rubbed my back, soothing me and murmuring that it would be alright and that she was sorry, that she should have realised. We stayed like that until the slam of the front door made us leap apart.
"It's OK," she said. I looked at her and knew that it was. There was no pity there, just soft warmth that told me we were beginning to really understand each other. She pressed her lips to mine. I wanted to cling to her again, but she pulled away with a smile. She still held my hand. And I knew I didn't want her to ever let go.